This film is highly underrated amongst the general audience, and that's a shame.

I remember so much about the lead up to this film, it was amazing.

The highlight for me was that early Ebert and Roeper review. The fact that they were calling it the best Batman movie ever by far, one of the best films of the year, I just couldn't hold in the excitement. Then, I saw the actual film and immediately fell in love with it. It was literally what I had always wanted to see out of a Batman film. Someone took the seriousness, the tone, and even some of the characterizations of Miller's Year One, put it on the big screen and even managed to make Ra's Al Ghul the villain. Absolutely brilliant.

Over time, I certainly found things that didn't exactly float my boat - like the amount of cheesy one liners, the microwave emitter and Martha Wayne's stunning lack of anything to do - but overall it's still one of my favorite films to watch. It's one of the best paced movies I've ever watched (same can be said for TDK) and always manages to hook my attention from start to finish.

People take it for granted now, but nobody had seen a superhero film that took itself so seriously before BB. Even Spider-Man 2 had tons of cheese and a lighthearted Saturday-morning-cartoon vibe to a lot of it. But Batman Begins, other than the aforementioned one-liners, treated its characters and its story with a sincerity and honesty that simply wasn't seen in comic book films at the time. Add to that the finest cast ever assembled for a comic book film, all bringing their A-game, and you have an incredible film. One that, as I mentioned, gets overlooked far too frequently.

This.

Batman Begins was unprecedented at the time. I always figured the film was in good hands with Nolan, but the trailers never did justice to the true caliber of the film. Sure, there are plenty of things to nitpick as there are in all three films, but the simple audacity of playing things straight and grounded reality in a superhero film, was something that had never been pulled off with such class until 2005. Having that cast really made you believe in and invest in that world. What this movie really had above all else for me was a real tactile texture to it, due to it's heavy use of practical effects over CG. It didn't have a trace of that plastic feel you got from most action/adventure films at that time. It felt very much like the Batman film that would have been made in 1978, not 2005. And that was simply awesome.